To dry hop with a closed transfer is easy. All of the keg lids that come with new kegs from Adventures in Homebrewing have a tab welded on the underside. I suspend my filled hop cage with fishing line and seal the keg before the transfer. If you want to DDH, you can purge a 2nd keg and use the jumper! I don't actually do closed transfer but when I purge my kegs with co2 the old-fashioned way, if I see the haze of co2 inside the keg, I feel confident that it's purged well. If you are gentle enough, the co2 fog will remain throughout the transfer. Great vid as always fellas.
SOunds good. I've done it that way plenty of times and its worked fine for me. I have found that with the delicate styles like NEIPA the freshness seems to last a bit longer in the keg if I go the extra mile. But to each his own really. We promote doing what works for you. We're just presenting a point of view for enlightenment and entertainment and our own exploration. Thanks for the comment! Cheers! -Mike
Thanks again for this vid.......John and Mike......closed transfers is the next step in improving ur homebrew.......it definitely has improved mine.......I really appreciate the wonderful videos you have made all these years for us...........Wish you both a Happy New Year.......stay safe...cheers
I used to pressure transfer from a carboy. I bought the ferroday carbonation cap and stuck it into the second tube of the carboy cap. Now that i have a delta fermentor I just do the gravity closed loop transfer. Great video!
Ball lock fittings with flared ends are my best friend when doing closed transfers. Allow you to switch back and forth between beer and gas. Before pushing beer, blow co2 through all your transfer tubing by depressing the ball lock connector with your finger. A quick spray of starsan and then attach to your post for oxygen free intrusion.
Good stuff guys! I had a couple pin lock kegs that I wasnt using and decided to try fermentation in kegs with a flexible dip tube for this purpose. Works great and for 20 bucks for the flexible dip tube you can do completely closed transfers from keg to keg. Ive even gone a step further to use CO2 from fermentation of the beer to push Star San out of my serving keg so its purged and Im not wasting CO2 from my cylinder. Hope you guys have had a great Christmas and New Years! Sláinte!
Cheers man! I've toyed with the idea of doing the CO2 purge thing but I am not really thinking that far ahead when I get to brew to set up the keg and Starsan. Happy NY to you! -Mike
Thanks for the video, guys. I like to daisy chain fermenting keg to serving keg w/ a spunding valve on the serving keg. Then when transferring, do a closed transfer with the captured CO2 from the serving keg running to the fermenter.
I never thought of the 1/2 inch tubing fitting on the three piece airlock. With that I think I pretty much have everything to try this. Thanks for the tip!
Great info guys. BTW you could use a dry hop cage in the keg. Add hops to the sanitized keg. Purge the keg and proceed with the transfer. I've never done closed transfers but I just ordered a 14 ss brew bucket and decided it's time to step up my game. I think I'll add a valve to the lid with a gas fitting to hook up the co2 for an easy transfer.
I got that ss brewbucket for xmas. LOVE it. Big upgrade from plastic. I have been kegging for 6 mo, never going back to bottles. Just started fermenting a hef. Totally going to try the closed loop to keg it! Thanks guys!
Thanks a lot for the video. I am thinking about how to do a closed transfer with my brewing container. They are stainless steel, but have a big screw-on "lid".
How do you purge the O2 from the gas out line to the fermenter? Do you put your thumb over the barb fitting end of the tubing, connect the gas end fitting to the gas side on the keg, then stab the hose on the hose barb at the fermenter quick like? Also, how would you purge the O2 from the liquid side of the keg to the fermenter spigot?
That would be one way to do it. I accept that the system isn't going to be 100% O2 free. Its about trying to be as low as can be reasonably expected at the homebrew scale. This has worked for me and kept IPAs from going "purple" as it were. I'm good with it. I supposed you could try and purge the lines first either off the keg itself or with a seperate tank. But I'm trying to be practical with my beer brew as often as possible. Cheers! -Mike
When I purge my keg of sanitizer, instead of displacing the liquid into another free keg, I simply send it to a plastic bucket. Thus, my jumper cable is simply a ball lock liquid disconnect on one side and nothing on the other end.
I have yet to try fermenting in the Cornelius, but I am going to try it. Mostly because I have updated my brewing equipment and haven't yet completed the project. Would fermenting in the keg be such a negative experience that it would complicate the process as much as transferring the finished beer? I am not implying that transfers are too risky, but rather is transferring actually even necessary to produce a great beer? If cleaning the keg is too complicated after fermenting in it, I think my pressure washer would get it clean in concert with PBW and Star San.
I have fermented in a corny a few times and I like the process. Unfortunately, my brew process and gear is really set for the 5-10 gallon batch size and I felt like I needed to be doing 4 gallons when fermenting in a corny due to limited headspace. (I don't like dealing with blow off and stuff like that.) But using a keg simplifies a lot of things like cold crashing, you can ferment under pressure, you can rack with pressure assists with no fear. Its something to consider. Cheers! -Mike
I have a carboy fermenter, can i use the orange cap but use the technique you discussed about the ss brewtech ? Just to make sure Cane to gas in Liquid out to top of orange cap Is that right? Pressure going out of keg will prime the carboy with CO2 that will pressure push beer thru cane into gas in of keg Keeping O2 away and equilibrating pressures
I don't see why you couldn't create the same closed loop using an orange cap and carboy. But you'd go the cane side to the beverage out/long dip tube and the gas outlet to the top of the carboy through the second port of the orange cap. Beer is going to travel up the cane and into the base of the keg. As the keg fills gas is displaced out the gas post from the top and replaces the dropping volume in the carboy. Its not really an active pressure push. Its still a gravity siphon process though. You'd need to prime your siphon first using a carboy. Its just that you are replacing the headspace with the CO2 from the keg back into the carboy. There is no real pressure doing the pushing. In fact you want to make sure you go from gas post to top of carboy first otherwise the bit of pressure in the keg will bubble through the beer cane first disturbing the trub (if the cane is that low) and you'll have less cleared beer. If you're fast enough you might be able to get the siphon to start with the pressure still in the keg. But you'd have to pop the to fittings down on the keg at almost the same time. The only issue you might have is the tubing diameters. You'll have to do a step up in that tubing from the gas outlet to the carboy cap because the diameters are so different. But the basic principle will work, just gotta figure out the hardware issues. Cheers! -Mike
I still bottle everything. I have a soda stream that works great for purging bottles before filling. I just did my first bottle-conditioned hazy IPA with no oxidation issues. The soda stream is pretty cheap and I use it for other stuff anyway. Just another way to reduce oxidation.
I like to clean as many kegs at a time as possible, then do the star San purge through all the kegs at one time. I use spigot fermenters so I just gravity feed, I don't have a setup for a closed loop yet
For most styles I have good luck doing it that way and racking straight to the bottom of the keg slowly. For NEIPAs though sometimes its a hit or miss and the beer changes color some. YMMV. Cheers! -Mike
I've thought of a Randal a handful of times. I always worried about decarbing the beer. Although now you've got me thinking about whether I could put a Randall mid line between jumping the beer from one keg to the next. I'd need to totally purge the O2... now I am thinking... hhmmm.. Cheers! -Mike
You can do a double transfer for dry hops... put the dry hops in vessel 2 purge with CO2.. then transfer over again. . You can do this for each dry hop addition without the beer ever hitting the air
I had been doing it that way for years. It all comes down to how good that purge is. I am not convinced that a keg filled with air every fully purges by pressurizing and burping several times. Now a keg that is truly empty of air at the start, I think you can get a way with opening a lid putting in hops closing and burping many times and get a pretty stable product. I'd like to see more definitive results with actual O2 meters in a keg. Thanks for the comment. Cheers! -Mike
Great videos, awesome, thanks!!! I've been experimenting pressure fermentation (keg) with closed transfer for the last 5~6 batches. Having the CO2 loop-back from the serving to the fermenter keg plus the gravity helps to save a good amount of CO2, it takes more time to transfer but it works well. To purge the serving keg, I was doing exactly what you described (fill it with starsan and push CO2), but I felt it was too much CO2 (I'm a penny pincher I know 🙈), so I started to use the CO2 from the fermentation to purge the serving keg. Basically, I keep the spunding valve in the fermenter, but I connect the output of the valve to the serving keg. When the pressure on the spunding start to raise above the target pressure I ferment, 12psi, I move the spunding valve to the serving keg and and use a jumper between the two. Any thoughts? Would you say that would get rid of all CO2? Regarding dry hopping, I was thinking about doing a secondary keg fermenter. I would add the dry hops in the secondary keg, have it purged, transfer the beer into, keep for the amount of days I want, and do another closed transfer to the serving keg. Any thoughts? I saw some comments about randal hop back system comments, I will look into it to understand better how that works too 😉👍
In short it depends on the 'purge process'. I was concerned in my brewing practice that a keg filled with air the loaded with CO2, burped and cycled 3, 8, 40 times was probably never going to get the O2 out. Especially when all this adding and burping is happening at the top only. I think the only way to get the air out (in a homebrew environment) then is to positively displace a fluid with CO2. An interesting experiment would be to fill a keg with sanitizer and do what you say. If you can't expel all the water with the off gas from your process (which would be one volume of CO2) then you certainly never were getting the air out by mixing OC2 with the air in an sealed empty keg. I might have to try this no that I type it out. DO you get what I am saying? I'd also wonder how much back pressure is there on a fermentor that's trying to "exhale" through a whole keg of starsan. Which is one reason I haven't tried it yet. Awesome thoughts. Too bad we can't just have a beer and discuss it in real life. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks for the reply/help. I will try your suggestion in my next brew 😉. I guess there will be enough CO2 to move the sanitizer out of the serving keg but I will try. Once more, thanks for the suggestion, and keep the videos coming, we all love it 😉👍
In a previous video, you mentioned chelating reactive/enzymatic metals as a solution to oxidation issues. Have you thought more about this or done any experiments/tests? Presumably you would want to add this post fermentation as I assume yeast performance would decline without access to these metals, but oxidation isn't an instantaneous process, while chelation of, at least divalent, metal ions is extremely fast. As an aside, your completely closed cycle method seems pretty smart, but venting the pressure with the PRV seems to defeat your "closed cycle" concept as the partial O2 pressure outside the keg is higher than the partial O2 pressure inside the keg, so, while you're venting CO2 from the keg, you're introducing O2 at the same time. Gasses don't flow only one way based off of total pressure.
I haven't had time to research and source what I'd like to do regarding chelating agents, but yes I envision it as a post ferment thing. I'd agree about O2 ingress by pulling the PRV only if the two sides of the system (inside keg/outside keg) were at the same pressure to start. The pressure in the keg is significantly higher than atmospheric that the burp is a rush of CO2 out of the keg. Now, maybe if one assumes I mean hold it open until it stops hissing completely and wait more time then sure, O2 is getting in, minimal though. A quick burp to prevent a surge of CO2 bursting into the outlet of the brewbucket is a must in my opinion. Lastly, I don't deal in absolutes really. I make no assumption that any of these techniques could ever be zero O2 ingress. Many others tend speak as in absolutes (I assume not yourself). Presented here is a further way to help minimize O2 pickup knowing full well that its never 100% in a homebrew environment. Thanks for the thoughts and the comment. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks for the information on the chelating agents! I'm very interested in this technique and a video would be awesome if you guys ever get the chance! As for O2, I think you misunderstand diffusion rates based on partial pressures. The issue isn't really if the pressure inside the keg is so much higher or not (ie, just because you hear the keg hissing doesn't mean gas is only flowing one way). To first order approximation (reasonably valid at these quite low pressures), gas to gas collision doesn't occur (at higher pressures and higher orders of approximation, sure, there are collisions, but we're talking a few atm here). As a back of the envelope calculation: P_keg = a*P_room (where "a" is a function of how much pressure differential you're generating based on the height difference of the two kegs -- I think ~2 is reasonable here) p_room_O2 = 0.2*P_room p_keg_O2 = 0.0005*P_keg (assuming 3 9's purity) D_intokeg ~ (p_room_O2 - p_keg_O2) = (0.2*P_room) - (0.0005*P_keg) = (0.2 - 0.0005*a)*P_room where D is the rate of diffusion. The take away points here are that the diffusion rate is essentially independent of keg pressure and in fact goes up the better the job you've done to keep O2 out of the keg. I.e. opening the PRV is effectively the same as just doing an open transfer (to these reasonable approximations). The "a" variable means that the less frequent you vent pressure (the more pressure you're building in the keg), the less O2 you'll introduce via this method. The key caveat here though is that for beer to flow, a is capped by the height difference between your vessels, and (!) is practicably limited to a value less than an order of magnitude, meaning your diffusion constant will still be quite high, effectively the same as an open transfer. As another aside, if you're going to go through all this trouble, a gas quick connect with a bubbler (glass of water/starsan for instance) and a few ft of tubing is a cheap way to avoid this confusion and possible O2 pickup. Finally, in terms of dealing with absolutes, I agree -- I'm simply saying the difference between the PRV and an open transfer is considerably smaller than the difference between PRV and closed transfer or using a bubbler and therefore, encouraging drastic changes to kegging protocol for extremely marginal improvements seems unnecessary, especially when cheap and considerably better methods exist.
The amount of star san left in the keg after racking out always bothered me. I know "don't fear the foam" but there's always a dent on the bottom of the keg that holds quite a bit of liquid/trub.
I hear you. I haven't had any issues with my beer, knowing that there is that small amount of sanitizing solution in the keg. I make sure that I mix the proper amounts and hope for the best. It's worked so far - ha. - John
Post-fermentation oxidation is never a good thing for beer. Best to remove it from your process entirely if possible. I keg but, if I have to bottle for competition/sampling, I prefer to use PET bottles fitted with a carb cap/Tee setup to pressure fill and then I squeeze the bottle after being filled to remove excess O2 and cap. Something like this: brewkegtap.co.uk/products/carbonation-cap-tee-piece-kit
I am not convinced. I never have seen a real world taste comparison. CO2 vs Spigot. I'm a lazy SOB and this looks like a whole lotta work for a nefarious benefit.
In most styles it might be imperceptible to discern when the beer is young/fresh but I also think in the NEIPA space things turn bad quickly. Especially when people used to add a ton of oats in NEIPA all the manganese contributed by the oats would turn slightly purple upon oxidation. Cheers! -Mike
Sorry Guys, I have to give you a thumbs down on this one. You have been brewing for a long while and should have a better transfer method than this video is displaying. And quit advocating the use of buckets when the lid comes off there is a large surface area of beer exposed to oxygen. I have been transferring with a closed system for years now with carboys (glass) and orange stoppers. The racking cane goes in the center hole, and a barbed flare fitting for the CO2 connection goes in the other hole. On bottling day, I slide a bottling wand into the hose connected to the racking cane. No O2 issues. I do seal all penetration with hose clamps. Three to four pounds of CO2 pressure works well.
Buckets is what some people can afford when the start out man. I gave some practical ideas and stated that for some sensitive styles its not ideal. I'm not going to tell first year brewers that buckets are garbage for getting started. Are there alternatives yes and we highlighted those too. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Oxygen is bad for all styles. You also have to ask yourself how many potential home brewers quit the hobby because their oxidized beer tasted like crap time and time again. I know I was one that almost quit.
Those bags full of co2 are great for preventing suckback during cold crash, as far as closed loop transfers - give these men a cigar!!
I haven't tried it yet but I know lots of people do. Cheers! -Mike
To dry hop with a closed transfer is easy. All of the keg lids that come with new kegs from Adventures in Homebrewing have a tab welded on the underside. I suspend my filled hop cage with fishing line and seal the keg before the transfer. If you want to DDH, you can purge a 2nd keg and use the jumper!
I don't actually do closed transfer but when I purge my kegs with co2 the old-fashioned way, if I see the haze of co2 inside the keg, I feel confident that it's purged well. If you are gentle enough, the co2 fog will remain throughout the transfer.
Great vid as always fellas.
SOunds good. I've done it that way plenty of times and its worked fine for me. I have found that with the delicate styles like NEIPA the freshness seems to last a bit longer in the keg if I go the extra mile. But to each his own really. We promote doing what works for you. We're just presenting a point of view for enlightenment and entertainment and our own exploration. Thanks for the comment! Cheers! -Mike
Thanks again for this vid.......John and Mike......closed transfers is the next step in improving ur homebrew.......it definitely has improved mine.......I really appreciate the wonderful videos you have made all these years for us...........Wish you both a Happy New Year.......stay safe...cheers
Cheers! -Mike
I used to pressure transfer from a carboy. I bought the ferroday carbonation cap and stuck it into the second tube of the carboy cap. Now that i have a delta fermentor I just do the gravity closed loop transfer. Great video!
Thanks for sharing. Cheers! - John
Ball lock fittings with flared ends are my best friend when doing closed transfers. Allow you to switch back and forth between beer and gas. Before pushing beer, blow co2 through all your transfer tubing by depressing the ball lock connector with your finger. A quick spray of starsan and then attach to your post for oxygen free intrusion.
Great tip - thank you! - John
Good stuff guys! I had a couple pin lock kegs that I wasnt using and decided to try fermentation in kegs with a flexible dip tube for this purpose. Works great and for 20 bucks for the flexible dip tube you can do completely closed transfers from keg to keg. Ive even gone a step further to use CO2 from fermentation of the beer to push Star San out of my serving keg so its purged and Im not wasting CO2 from my cylinder. Hope you guys have had a great Christmas and New Years! Sláinte!
Cheers man! I've toyed with the idea of doing the CO2 purge thing but I am not really thinking that far ahead when I get to brew to set up the keg and Starsan. Happy NY to you! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks man! Here is my process of closed transfers and fermentation in kegs...ua-cam.com/video/E4kF0XbiIx0/v-deo.html
Thanks for the video, guys. I like to daisy chain fermenting keg to serving keg w/ a spunding valve on the serving keg. Then when transferring, do a closed transfer with the captured CO2 from the serving keg running to the fermenter.
Nice - thank you for the comment! - John
I never thought of the 1/2 inch tubing fitting on the three piece airlock. With that I think I pretty much have everything to try this. Thanks for the tip!
Nice. Glad you got something new out of it. Cheers! -Mike
Great info guys. BTW you could use a dry hop cage in the keg. Add hops to the sanitized keg. Purge the keg and proceed with the transfer. I've never done closed transfers but I just ordered a 14 ss brew bucket and decided it's time to step up my game. I think I'll add a valve to the lid with a gas fitting to hook up the co2 for an easy transfer.
Right on - thank you for that dry hopping tip! - John
That is my exact situation I am restricted on space that is why I have bottle everything. Love your videos!!
Thank you!
Thanks for all the great shows from both of you this year. Always so positive even in such a year. Happy New Year Mike and Don.
Awesome! Thanks for the the comment. Cheers! -Mike
I got that ss brewbucket for xmas. LOVE it. Big upgrade from plastic. I have been kegging for 6 mo, never going back to bottles. Just started fermenting a hef. Totally going to try the closed loop to keg it! Thanks guys!
I really enjoy the SS buckets as well. Cheers! -Mike
May have to try a closed transfer on my next NEIPA using my SS brewtech brew bucket. thanks for the information! Cheers!
Nice - cheers!
Yeah, I do the same, but I have a co2 post on the side of my bucket. Nice video guys 👍
Thats creative. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Got the idea from this guy:
ua-cam.com/video/erww5swl7C4/v-deo.html
It's in norwegian, but you see how he's done it.
I've gone to a full closed transfer into a fully purged keg, helps keep any beer fresh.
That's the way to be!
Thanks a lot for the video. I am thinking about how to do a closed transfer with my brewing container. They are stainless steel, but have a big screw-on "lid".
Hard without some sort of port. Maybe purchase a second lid to do modifications on? Good luck. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes that's what I am working on: a 3D printed lid with holes for NC "poppets".
How do you purge the O2 from the gas out line to the fermenter? Do you put your thumb over the barb fitting end of the tubing, connect the gas end fitting to the gas side on the keg, then stab the hose on the hose barb at the fermenter quick like? Also, how would you purge the O2 from the liquid side of the keg to the fermenter spigot?
That would be one way to do it. I accept that the system isn't going to be 100% O2 free. Its about trying to be as low as can be reasonably expected at the homebrew scale. This has worked for me and kept IPAs from going "purple" as it were. I'm good with it. I supposed you could try and purge the lines first either off the keg itself or with a seperate tank. But I'm trying to be practical with my beer brew as often as possible. Cheers! -Mike
When I purge my keg of sanitizer, instead of displacing the liquid into another free keg, I simply send it to a plastic bucket. Thus, my jumper cable is simply a ball lock liquid disconnect on one side and nothing on the other end.
Yep, that works too!
I have yet to try fermenting in the Cornelius, but I am going to try it. Mostly because I have updated my brewing equipment and haven't yet completed the project. Would fermenting in the keg be such a negative experience that it would complicate the process as much as transferring the finished beer? I am not implying that transfers are too risky, but rather is transferring actually even necessary to produce a great beer? If cleaning the keg is too complicated after fermenting in it, I think my pressure washer would get it clean in concert with PBW and Star San.
I have fermented in a corny a few times and I like the process. Unfortunately, my brew process and gear is really set for the 5-10 gallon batch size and I felt like I needed to be doing 4 gallons when fermenting in a corny due to limited headspace. (I don't like dealing with blow off and stuff like that.) But using a keg simplifies a lot of things like cold crashing, you can ferment under pressure, you can rack with pressure assists with no fear. Its something to consider. Cheers! -Mike
I have a carboy fermenter, can i use the orange cap but use the technique you discussed about the ss brewtech ?
Just to make sure
Cane to gas in
Liquid out to top of orange cap
Is that right?
Pressure going out of keg will prime the carboy with CO2 that will pressure push beer thru cane into gas in of keg
Keeping O2 away and equilibrating pressures
I don't see why you couldn't create the same closed loop using an orange cap and carboy. But you'd go the cane side to the beverage out/long dip tube and the gas outlet to the top of the carboy through the second port of the orange cap. Beer is going to travel up the cane and into the base of the keg. As the keg fills gas is displaced out the gas post from the top and replaces the dropping volume in the carboy.
Its not really an active pressure push. Its still a gravity siphon process though. You'd need to prime your siphon first using a carboy. Its just that you are replacing the headspace with the CO2 from the keg back into the carboy. There is no real pressure doing the pushing. In fact you want to make sure you go from gas post to top of carboy first otherwise the bit of pressure in the keg will bubble through the beer cane first disturbing the trub (if the cane is that low) and you'll have less cleared beer. If you're fast enough you might be able to get the siphon to start with the pressure still in the keg. But you'd have to pop the to fittings down on the keg at almost the same time.
The only issue you might have is the tubing diameters. You'll have to do a step up in that tubing from the gas outlet to the carboy cap because the diameters are so different. But the basic principle will work, just gotta figure out the hardware issues. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes got it…. Thanks for the great videos…. Verry helpfull for a newbee like me
I still bottle everything. I have a soda stream that works great for purging bottles before filling. I just did my first bottle-conditioned hazy IPA with no oxidation issues. The soda stream is pretty cheap and I use it for other stuff anyway. Just another way to reduce oxidation.
Nice - appreciate that input! - John
I like to clean as many kegs at a time as possible, then do the star San purge through all the kegs at one time. I use spigot fermenters so I just gravity feed, I don't have a setup for a closed loop yet
For most styles I have good luck doing it that way and racking straight to the bottom of the keg slowly. For NEIPAs though sometimes its a hit or miss and the beer changes color some. YMMV. Cheers! -Mike
Oh man, you guys should try a Randal, or doing some sort of hop back system and compare that to a dry hop.
I've thought of a Randal a handful of times. I always worried about decarbing the beer. Although now you've got me thinking about whether I could put a Randall mid line between jumping the beer from one keg to the next. I'd need to totally purge the O2... now I am thinking... hhmmm.. Cheers! -Mike
You can do a double transfer for dry hops... put the dry hops in vessel 2 purge with CO2.. then transfer over again. . You can do this for each dry hop addition without the beer ever hitting the air
I had been doing it that way for years. It all comes down to how good that purge is. I am not convinced that a keg filled with air every fully purges by pressurizing and burping several times. Now a keg that is truly empty of air at the start, I think you can get a way with opening a lid putting in hops closing and burping many times and get a pretty stable product. I'd like to see more definitive results with actual O2 meters in a keg. Thanks for the comment. Cheers! -Mike
Great videos, awesome, thanks!!!
I've been experimenting pressure fermentation (keg) with closed transfer for the last 5~6 batches. Having the CO2 loop-back from the serving to the fermenter keg plus the gravity helps to save a good amount of CO2, it takes more time to transfer but it works well.
To purge the serving keg, I was doing exactly what you described (fill it with starsan and push CO2), but I felt it was too much CO2 (I'm a penny pincher I know 🙈), so I started to use the CO2 from the fermentation to purge the serving keg. Basically, I keep the spunding valve in the fermenter, but I connect the output of the valve to the serving keg. When the pressure on the spunding start to raise above the target pressure I ferment, 12psi, I move the spunding valve to the serving keg and and use a jumper between the two. Any thoughts? Would you say that would get rid of all CO2?
Regarding dry hopping, I was thinking about doing a secondary keg fermenter. I would add the dry hops in the secondary keg, have it purged, transfer the beer into, keep for the amount of days I want, and do another closed transfer to the serving keg. Any thoughts?
I saw some comments about randal hop back system comments, I will look into it to understand better how that works too 😉👍
In short it depends on the 'purge process'. I was concerned in my brewing practice that a keg filled with air the loaded with CO2, burped and cycled 3, 8, 40 times was probably never going to get the O2 out. Especially when all this adding and burping is happening at the top only. I think the only way to get the air out (in a homebrew environment) then is to positively displace a fluid with CO2. An interesting experiment would be to fill a keg with sanitizer and do what you say. If you can't expel all the water with the off gas from your process (which would be one volume of CO2) then you certainly never were getting the air out by mixing OC2 with the air in an sealed empty keg. I might have to try this no that I type it out. DO you get what I am saying? I'd also wonder how much back pressure is there on a fermentor that's trying to "exhale" through a whole keg of starsan. Which is one reason I haven't tried it yet. Awesome thoughts. Too bad we can't just have a beer and discuss it in real life. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks for the reply/help. I will try your suggestion in my next brew 😉. I guess there will be enough CO2 to move the sanitizer out of the serving keg but I will try. Once more, thanks for the suggestion, and keep the videos coming, we all love it 😉👍
Thanks for sharing, where do you find the brick carboy? Cheers!
Call Northern Brewer maybe they have them in stock! :) Cheers! -Mike
In a previous video, you mentioned chelating reactive/enzymatic metals as a solution to oxidation issues. Have you thought more about this or done any experiments/tests? Presumably you would want to add this post fermentation as I assume yeast performance would decline without access to these metals, but oxidation isn't an instantaneous process, while chelation of, at least divalent, metal ions is extremely fast.
As an aside, your completely closed cycle method seems pretty smart, but venting the pressure with the PRV seems to defeat your "closed cycle" concept as the partial O2 pressure outside the keg is higher than the partial O2 pressure inside the keg, so, while you're venting CO2 from the keg, you're introducing O2 at the same time. Gasses don't flow only one way based off of total pressure.
I haven't had time to research and source what I'd like to do regarding chelating agents, but yes I envision it as a post ferment thing.
I'd agree about O2 ingress by pulling the PRV only if the two sides of the system (inside keg/outside keg) were at the same pressure to start. The pressure in the keg is significantly higher than atmospheric that the burp is a rush of CO2 out of the keg. Now, maybe if one assumes I mean hold it open until it stops hissing completely and wait more time then sure, O2 is getting in, minimal though. A quick burp to prevent a surge of CO2 bursting into the outlet of the brewbucket is a must in my opinion.
Lastly, I don't deal in absolutes really. I make no assumption that any of these techniques could ever be zero O2 ingress. Many others tend speak as in absolutes (I assume not yourself). Presented here is a further way to help minimize O2 pickup knowing full well that its never 100% in a homebrew environment. Thanks for the thoughts and the comment. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Thanks for the information on the chelating agents! I'm very interested in this technique and a video would be awesome if you guys ever get the chance!
As for O2, I think you misunderstand diffusion rates based on partial pressures. The issue isn't really if the pressure inside the keg is so much higher or not (ie, just because you hear the keg hissing doesn't mean gas is only flowing one way). To first order approximation (reasonably valid at these quite low pressures), gas to gas collision doesn't occur (at higher pressures and higher orders of approximation, sure, there are collisions, but we're talking a few atm here). As a back of the envelope calculation:
P_keg = a*P_room (where "a" is a function of how much pressure differential you're generating based on the height difference of the two kegs -- I think ~2 is reasonable here)
p_room_O2 = 0.2*P_room
p_keg_O2 = 0.0005*P_keg (assuming 3 9's purity)
D_intokeg ~ (p_room_O2 - p_keg_O2) = (0.2*P_room) - (0.0005*P_keg) = (0.2 - 0.0005*a)*P_room
where D is the rate of diffusion. The take away points here are that the diffusion rate is essentially independent of keg pressure and in fact goes up the better the job you've done to keep O2 out of the keg. I.e. opening the PRV is effectively the same as just doing an open transfer (to these reasonable approximations). The "a" variable means that the less frequent you vent pressure (the more pressure you're building in the keg), the less O2 you'll introduce via this method. The key caveat here though is that for beer to flow, a is capped by the height difference between your vessels, and (!) is practicably limited to a value less than an order of magnitude, meaning your diffusion constant will still be quite high, effectively the same as an open transfer.
As another aside, if you're going to go through all this trouble, a gas quick connect with a bubbler (glass of water/starsan for instance) and a few ft of tubing is a cheap way to avoid this confusion and possible O2 pickup.
Finally, in terms of dealing with absolutes, I agree -- I'm simply saying the difference between the PRV and an open transfer is considerably smaller than the difference between PRV and closed transfer or using a bubbler and therefore, encouraging drastic changes to kegging protocol for extremely marginal improvements seems unnecessary, especially when cheap and considerably better methods exist.
That loop idea with the keg and brew bucket is a serious lightbulb moment. I'm saving some serious CO2 in the future
Cheers! - John
The amount of star san left in the keg after racking out always bothered me. I know "don't fear the foam" but there's always a dent on the bottom of the keg that holds quite a bit of liquid/trub.
I hear you. I haven't had any issues with my beer, knowing that there is that small amount of sanitizing solution in the keg. I make sure that I mix the proper amounts and hope for the best. It's worked so far - ha. - John
The plastic ball lock cap that fits on a soda bottle has a barb that fits into the orange cap
Oh really!?!?! I need to find one of those. Thanks for the tip. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes scratch that just the stainless one has the wider barb!
You guys are always a gas! And even better without the gas!
Nice. Cheers! -Mike
Why would anyone use bottling bucket? When I bottled I always just primed directly into the fermenter and bottled from it with a cane.
To lose the yeast cake
And to have a reasonable idea that the priming sugar is mixed in
How did you not stir up all the cake while incorporating the priming sugar? Cheers! -Mike
Post-fermentation oxidation is never a good thing for beer. Best to remove it from your process entirely if possible.
I keg but, if I have to bottle for competition/sampling, I prefer to use PET bottles fitted with a carb cap/Tee setup to pressure fill and then I squeeze the bottle after being filled to remove excess O2 and cap.
Something like this: brewkegtap.co.uk/products/carbonation-cap-tee-piece-kit
Great tip! - thank you for the comment. - John
I am not convinced. I never have seen a real world taste comparison. CO2 vs Spigot. I'm a lazy SOB and this looks like a whole lotta work for a nefarious benefit.
In most styles it might be imperceptible to discern when the beer is young/fresh but I also think in the NEIPA space things turn bad quickly. Especially when people used to add a ton of oats in NEIPA all the manganese contributed by the oats would turn slightly purple upon oxidation. Cheers! -Mike
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Sorry Guys, I have to give you a thumbs down on this one. You have been brewing for a long while and should have a better transfer method than this video is displaying. And quit advocating the use of buckets when the lid comes off there is a large surface area of beer exposed to oxygen. I have been transferring with a closed system for years now with carboys (glass) and orange stoppers. The racking cane goes in the center hole, and a barbed flare fitting for the CO2 connection goes in the other hole. On bottling day, I slide a bottling wand into the hose connected to the racking cane. No O2 issues. I do seal all penetration with hose clamps. Three to four pounds of CO2 pressure works well.
Buckets is what some people can afford when the start out man. I gave some practical ideas and stated that for some sensitive styles its not ideal. I'm not going to tell first year brewers that buckets are garbage for getting started. Are there alternatives yes and we highlighted those too. Cheers! -Mike
@@BrewDudes Oxygen is bad for all styles. You also have to ask yourself how many potential home brewers quit the hobby because their oxidized beer tasted like crap time and time again. I know I was one that almost quit.